When Will They Learn?

By Gwen, on November 27th, 2007

I am not really a very political mother, or person for that matter. I vote, yes, and I have opinions about politics, but I have never been one to join a protest and march. I know, I know, I live in BC and I should be a rabid something or other and protest all the time, join rallies and generally make a lot of noise. A lot of the time people who make huge deals about a lot of things annoy me.

There are a few things however that make me crazy. Telling a nursing mother that she needs to cover up because she is being obscene feeding her baby makes me crazy. Groups like Myspace and Facebook taking off pictures of nursing mothers for being obscene while letting a group taking pictures of drunk girls misbehaving, and pictures of people doing whatever it is they do. Have you seen some of the cartoons that people send on Facebook? As a reaction the League of Maternal Justice had a live web nurse-in and a video montage of lots of mother’s breastfeeding pictures, mine included. I thought it was beautiful. I wasn’t ashamed of having my pictures in a video that saw nourishing your child as a good thing. Now Youtube has decided to take down the video. Not making it for older audiences, they have taken it down. It makes me really sad that something so nice has been deemed obscene.

I am so saddened that I need to write about it. I need to tell you my family and friends that something that is so wonderful, that is healthy for mother and baby is being labelled obscene. I am so sorry that I didn’t make sure that I sent people the link while it was still up. I am sorry that I was quiet in my actions to make a point to people who compare breastfeeding to masturbating in public. It is almost enough to make me want to have a rally, a protest. I am going to do a small video to the Youtube people. I am going to link to the League of Maternal Justice. I am going to link to my member of parliament. (Damn it is Hedy fry and she might just make things worse.) I am going to be vocal about this. I might even send an email to CBC and try to get them to do something on this. It is time to stop telling us that something that the World Heath Organization, Health Canada, and god knows what other health organizations tell us if best for baby, is not for anyones eyes. That it must be covered up. It makes me mad.

If it makes you angry or sad as well there are some things you can do. If you go to the League of Maternal Justice they have links to various organizations and ways to help. I hope that someday soon this won’t be an issue at all. Breastfeeding will be seen as natural and beautiful and something you don’t need to cover up.